Our friend S. has done more for the Lockardugan clan than we can possibly repay. She has nursed kitties, watched over the house, coordinated showers, served as a maid of honor—the woman does it all, with a smile.
She’s getting married in a few weeks, and asked me if I could take pictures at the wedding. This is something that fills me with alternating waves of dread and excitement, because I’m thrilled from a technical aspect, flattered from an artistic standpoint, and terrified I might fuck something up. I’ve been doing some research into basic wedding photography tips, and one of the newsletters I subscribe to had a list of good articles on the subject.
The first article is focused on making happy clients, by doing things like mapping out a shot list, using diffused light, setting expectations, etc. I know I’m going to have to scout out the location of this wedding because it’s outdoors, and definitely find a few backdrops to shoot against.
The second article adds a technical tip: shooting in Aperture Priority. I spent a lot of time fiddling with the Manual settings the last time I shot people outdoors, so I’m going to muck around with this setting a little tomorrow—I don’t know why I didn’t try this earlier.
Several of the commenters suggest lenses that are out of my current price range. The 18-200 VR lens would be a good choice, and a wide-angle lens like the 12-24; I can rent the 18-200 for $35 locally, which isn’t bad at all. I’ll have to see if they have a wide-angle too.
The thing that scares me the most is using the flash; I’m still not up to speed on settings yet, and that’s going to take practice. What I need to do is read up more on TTL metering to see if that’s my best bet, or use something else. I found a book at the store last night which had some great, simple rules of thumb for using TTL flash (especially to reduce red-eye), and doing some digging around the internets I’ve found a few places where the concepts are explained in plain english. This is an article on using multiple wireless TTL flashes. I’ll add more here as I learn.